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Gubaidulina: Johannes-passion / Gergiev, Kornewa, Lutsiuk


Release Date: 10/16/2001 
Label:  Hänssler Classic   Catalog #: 98405   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Sofia Gubaidulina
Performer:  Natalia Kornewa,  Viktor Lutsiuk,  Fedor Mozhaev,  Genadij Bezzubenkov
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Kirov Theater Orchestra,  Kirov Theater Chorus
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 1 Hours 31 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Sofia Gubaidulina’s St John Passion is a phenomenal feat of composition. It’s hard to believe that anyone could make so much from so little. The basic ingredient of almost every solo or chorus, melody or gesture is the minor second, the interval that has represented sighs and groans of pain in Western music for centuries – Bach’s use of it in the final bar of his St Matthew Passion is perhaps the supreme example. From this Gubaidulina weaves textures of immense complexity, like the crowd scenes in ‘The Way to Golgotha’, or draws out tellingly simple, sparingly harmonised chants or recitatives. The trouble is, it’s all so unrelentingly bleak, the mood shifting from dread to desolation and back again. Frantic, polyphonically dense crescendos Read more reminiscent of Ligeti’s Requiem alternate with passages of black stasis, closer in mood to the anguished emptiness of late Shostakovich. Even the ‘Liturgy in Heaven’, enriched with swirling metallic haloes of percussion, is claustrophobic and doom-laden. The text allows glimmers of hope, of the possibility of salvation – the music, none. Valery Gergiev, the soloists, chorus and orchestra sustain the intensity mercilessly, and the sound of Gennady Bezzubenkov’s deep bass voice – somewhere between an earth-tremor and a subterranean growl – haunts the mind long after the disc is back in its box. I’ll think long and hard before taking it out again though.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine
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Works on This Recording

1. St John Passion by Sofia Gubaidulina
Performer:  Natalia Kornewa (Soprano), Viktor Lutsiuk (Tenor), Fedor Mozhaev (Baritone),
Genadij Bezzubenkov (Bass)
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Kirov Theater Orchestra,  Kirov Theater Chorus
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1999-2000; Germany 
 Date of Recording: 09/01/2000 
Venue:  Live  Kongresszentrum Liederhalle, Stuttgart 
Length: 90 Minutes 46 Secs. 
Language: Russian 
Notes: "Johannes-Passion" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. 

Sound Samples

St. John Passion: I. Das Wort
St. John Passion: II. Fusswaschung
St. John Passion: III. Das Gebot des Glaubens
St. John Passion: IV. Das Gebot der Liebe
St. John Passion: V. Hoffnung
St. John Passion: VI. Liturgie im Himmel
St. John Passion: VII. Verrat, Verleugnung, Geisselung, Verurteilung
St. John Passion: VIII. Gang nach Golgatha
St. John Passion: IX. Eine Frau, mit der Sonne bekleidet
St. John Passion: X. Grablegung
St. John Passion: XI. Die seiben Schalen des Zorns

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